A Cripple and a Dragon Walk into a Bar
by chameleoncake
Summary: It all started with a blue bucket and a red stain in the snow. What a stupid fucking idea. (Modern RotBTD AU where Jack and Elsa are twins.)


**A/N:** I wrote this way back in April 2015, _,_ and it was awful. I recently revised it, so now it's less awful. I had this huge vision for this story, but I got two chapters in before stopping. I'm hoping to get somewhere with it this time. It's a cringey crossover story between a bunch of CGI movies. You know, Frozen, Tangled, Brave, Rise of the Guardians, Big Hero 6, etc. I doubt anyone will read this now that the Big 4 fandom has basically died out, but I thank anyone who does.

* * *

Darkness. Coldness. Silence. They're nothing without their opposites. They're only words for when their other halves aren't there. That's who I've always been. A boy of nothing. Nothingness. Born without, not even my other half, but without all of it. It's like my mother laid an egg, but instead of it hatching, the shell sprouted legs, and she settled for that.

It seems unfair - whiny, even, to insist that I'm missing a part of me, considering I was born with another little egg holding my hand all the way through. Still, though, two spare tires don't make a working car. Our story is an unorganized, unsure, unneeded one, like ourselves. Jack and Elsa: The Incomplete Series. We came into this world on the winter solstice, and, honestly, our parents should have thrown us out onto the streets right then. They may not have seen it for the blinking neon sign sent straight from hell that it was, but if they'd only known - known what they'd brought into the world, I'm sure they would have given us up immediately.

Because no later than the first night home, it started snowing in our nursery. Because when we started walking, little patches of frost appeared all over the hardwood floors. Because with every temper tantrum came a hail storm that forced mom and dad to arm themselves with umbrellas. Because they couldn't keep a regular babysitter for more than a week without her getting literal hypothermia.

Elsa and I had both been born blond, but I went gray by age twelve. We went to all sorts of doctors, but they all had the same resounding "Beats me." They all assumed I had some sort of birth defect, and waved it off. They had more important things to worry about, like actual medical problems. My parents thought that maybe it could be something along the lines of theirsonhavingmagicalicepowers or whatever, but they weren't doctors, so they thought they'd best not say anything. I wondered if stress had something to do with it, but I'm sure if that'd been the case, Elsa's hair would've turned gray long before mine. Elsa has always been the one hating herself over all of this. Elsa would give anything to get rid of her powers. She doesn't care if they make her special, she doesn't care about all the possibilities that come with it, and she sure as hell doesn't care that they're a part of what makes her who she is. She doesn't give a shit about the hundreds of reasons why our powers are amazing; all she can see are the billions of reasons they suck ass.

 _"I can't eat hot pockets."_

 _"I always break the TV remote."_

 _"I get bruises whenever I try to go on a slip n' slide."_

A bunch of stupid shit.

And then...

 _"I could hurt someone again."_

The reason she locks herself in her room every year on her birthday, the reason she refuses to get close to anyone, and this is the reason she won't go anywhere near our little sister Anna anymore.

Because Elsa made our kid sister a cripple.

When we were little, the three of us got caught up in a freak accident, and Elsa, being the self-hating person she is, insisted the whole thing was her fault.

It was only like 90% her fault.

* * *

On the Christmas Eve following mine and Elsa's birthday, all three of of us were outside, having a field day in the foot-high snow, while our parents were watching TV inside. Elsa was getting pretty flustered, trying with all her might to form icicles on the edge of the roof, but the best she could manage were spewed clusters of hail and snow. I'd already learned to do it ages ago, which she knew, but she and her pride refused to let me help her. So I sat there under a big oak tree, watching her fail over and over again.

"Elsa, you look like a retard," I blurted from behind her, mindlessly scooping snow into a plastic blue bucket.

"Wha—," she turned around, clearly startled, stumbling a little. "Don't say that...especially in front of Anna," she gritted, mumbling the last part in an effort to hide it from Anna, who was lying on the ground right next to her, making a snow angel. She had been in the same place for five minutes, reaching as far as she could, in an attempt to make the wings larger and larger.

"It's just a word."

"Being grounded is just a temporary removal of privileges," she said. She was trying to sound smart, but she was making herself sound even more retarded.

"Will you just let me help you?"

Though still annoyed with me, she gave in, silently nodding.

"Icicles are just frozen water, dripping off. It freezes into the shape of the water. You can't freeze something that's not there."

She paused for a moment, tucking in her lips, before asking a favor that she would regret the rest of her life.

"Can I use your bucket?"

I sighed, trying to sound as bothered as possible. I didn't really care about the bucket, though. She was just being annoying.

"Yeah. Fine, I guess." I emptied out the container, noting that it was big enough for Anna to sit in, and handed it to my sister, as she carried it to the over to the water-hose. She twisted the hose out from the faucet, and placed the bucket underneath it, twisted the knob, and waited for it the fill to the brim. She carried it back to her spot near Anna, waddling in her layers, as water swayed out every few seconds.

 _I could have told her to use a smaller bucket._

"Get the ladder," she said, pointing bossily in the direction of said ladder.

"UGhhh." I complied and headed to the back yard. It wasn't like I had anything better to do.

I came back with a wooden fold-out ladder, as I dragged it across the snow, leaving parallel lines in the otherwise untouched silk. I folded it out right in front of the roof, next to Elsa, as Anna watched obliviously, without sitting up from her spot.

 _I could have told Anna to move._

Having an idea of what Elsa had planned, I climbed half way up the 6-step ladder, as she strove to lift up the massive container. She handed it to me, my arms quivering as I grasped the handles and proceeded two more steps up. I glanced through the window below me. Mom and dad were glued to the TV.

"Ready?" she asked me, sighing in anticipation.

No. This is a fucking stupid idea.

"Yeah. I think so."

My arms trembled again. I lifted the water over my head, wincing as my legs nearly slipped, and Elsa placed herself into a stance.

I dumped the water onto the edge of the roof, relieved as I felt all that weight being lifted from me. In just a few seconds, the mass of liquid poured out.

And Elsa actually did it. The water froze in it's place.

For two seconds. She'd failed to wait until the water reached the roof. Instead, she'd shot quickly, causing the water to freeze mid-air, into a large mass of ice.

 _I could have jumped in front of Anna._

The ice tumbled onto, then off, the roof, a bit of it breaking off on impact. As it flew towards the ground, it landed precisely...on Anna's left arm.

The giant shard punctured her skin, causing a noise akin to someone quickly cutting into Thanksgiving turkey.

The noise that followed, though, was the most heartbreaking thing I've ever had to hear.

Anna's scream, broken every so often by a straight sob.

Elsa burst into tears, kneeling towards her little sister, hopeless and panicked. I was, for lack of a better word, frozen. The door flew open, like an attempt by the universe to pull me back into reality. It failed, though, and I stood there, still, as Elsa cried over the red stain in the snow, so hard that she was barely breathing anymore. My parents seemed to be following in my lead for a moment, saying nothing, doing nothing, before my mother took in a large breath and screamed at my father to call an ambulance, to "please, dear god, call an ambulance."

It wasn't until Anna stopped making noise that I started crying with Elsa.


End file.
